Guardian 'banned' from Leeds United's Elland Road

Our reporters have been barred following our coverage of the club's ownership issue

A Jersey court was told by Ken Bates in January, Leeds United's chairman since 2005, that he jointly-owned the club's holding company. In May Bates said that his statement had been "not correct". Photograph: Paul Gilham/Getty Images

Unbeaten Leeds United play improving Norwich City in a meaty League One match tonight – but the Guardian will not be reporting from the game because, we were informed this afternoon, we have been "banned" from Elland Road.

The reason given was that this is the club's reaction to the articles I have written recently, which have reported that there is a mystery about who owns Leeds United. That is a matter of public record, because it emerged in a court case Leeds United as a club has itself brought against a company in Jersey.

In the court case, Leeds chairman Ken Bates said previously that he and his financial advisor, Patrick Murrin, held one "management share" each in the Forward Sports Fund, the Cayman Islands-registered company which owns Leeds United. Mark Taylor, a Leeds director, said there are no other shares in the company and therefore, as I reported in March, Bates and Murrin were the joint owners of Leeds.

However, Bates subsequently made a sworn statement to the court, in which he said that that had been an "error". In fact, he said, there are 10,000 shares in the Forward Sports Fund, but the holders of those shares have not been identified.

The Football League has asked Leeds to clarify who the owners are, so that they can be passed as "fit and proper people", as the league's rules require.

Neither Leeds nor Bates himself have so far commented on this question, about who ultimately owns the club, or about how the previous error occurred.

The barring of the Guardian tonight means, sadly, that we cannot report the performance of Leeds' team, who have been in dominant form this season, on this, the country's best-read newspaper website, or in the newspaper itself.